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Stuff I done bought yesterday

Big, expensive day. Stupid Doom Patrol trade...

  • Doom Patrol: v 3. Down Paradise Way
  • Doomed - from IDW
  • Where Monsters Dwell
  • Gødland
  • The Goon #14
  • The Goon 25-center
  • Villains United #6
  • Marvel Adventures: FF #5
  • Infinite Crisis #1

I actually had to put stuff back. Like Death Valley from Speakeasy, which I'd never heard of. Which is weird, because I'm writing a book sorta in the same genre for them, coming out in a month or so.

There may be reviews of some of this later. Though in a nutshell, Infinite Crisis #1 ended up being pretty much what I expected it to be (which will be true for any reader). It's erratic and jumpy, much like the book that inspired it, not particularly well-written. The art's less crowded than the original (whch is white-dwarf-dense compared to today's comics), but I suppose it serves as a decent spine to hang all the other crossover issues off of. It's not a satisfying or moving read, though. And really, who needs to see GRIM BIZARRO pound on the Human Bomb?

The reveal isn't much of a surprise, had you read the original (which I didn't when it was fresh, but I did a few years back). I mean, geez, why has it taken them this long to use a set up which Marv Wolfman acknowledges he left in as a back door years and years ago?

As for me being a grumpy old man, that may be a fair cop. However, when I'm reading superhero comics, I'm going there for a hit of wonder and imagination, and maybe just maybe a shred of insight into the characters. That's something that I get regularly with the wonderful (though uneven) Seven Soldiers, but it's just something that I'm not getting off this. There's a dreariness that pervades it, a tooth-gritted crosshatched musclebound dread that simply fails to rock my world. The first Crisis was insane, unhinged. This one just seems dour and homicidal in comparison.